Short-term terrestrial climate variability through MIS 3 and Termination 1
Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 represents a critical interval for understading the response of terretrial environments to rapid climate change driven by orbital focring. As the primary constituent of loess and a major driver in global climate forcing, mineral dust serves as a proxy that allows for direct comparison of loess data with chronologically better resolved ice and lake records. Motivated by the recent emergence of high-resolution magnetic and sedimentological data on European loess-paleosol profiles, we explore advances and drawbacks in comparing regional paleoenvironmental response to millennial-scale climate variability during last glacial cycle. We show that the Lower Danube loess preserves a convincing paleoclimate record that closely tracks the Greenland interstadials/stadials (GI/GS) during MIS 3. To explore regional patterns of change, we focus in comparing loess records with better-established lacustrine and marine records from southeastern Europe. As reliable chronological control is the major limiting factor in exploring the full MIS 3 paleoclimate potential of loess records, we also discuss regional implications in defining an improved loess chronostratigraphic framework based on several lines of chronological evidence, and especially loess tephrochronology.
Details
Author
Daniel Veres1,2
Institutionen
1Romanian Academy, Institute of Speleology, Cluj, Romania; 2Department of Geography, RWTH Aachen University, Germany